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John Row, the enchanting Author and poet mesmerised children and adults alike, through his storytelling session at the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival.
John Row has stretched the boundaries of storytelling by working in schools, colleges and even prisons across Europe and America to spread literacy and awareness about societal issues and social responsibilities, among other things.
In addition to being a storyteller, Row is also a qualified teacher who believes that there is a commonality among the children of the world, despite all their language and cultural differences.
Dressed in his own charmingly old-fashioned costume, Row started his session by narrating a Native American folktale about how frogs got their long back legs. In a matter of minutes, children joined in, forgetting their inhibitions and the barriers of language. Responding eagerly and enthusiastically to his storytelling, children and adults alike participated in the session that was held at Sharjah Expo Center.
Meanwhile, cookery sessions held by Chefs Brigitte Carrere and Urban Rajah also captured the hearts and minds of the visitors.
Brigitte Carrere is a French chef with more than a dozen cook books to her credit. Apart from being a social sciences teacher, she has run the cooking section in various magazines for 15 years, and has been active social worker as well.
At the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, she took the audience through the process of making her favourite ’Whoopies’, a variation of chocolate cookies.
Another cooking session by the Urban Rajah, (aka Ivor Peters) who is a food writer, cook, traveler and lifestyle adventurer from the U.K. who has roots deep in the Indian Subcontinent. He runs a fusion cuisine restaurant ’Cash n Curry’ in Britain, a popular joint for food enthusiasts. He also works actively to raise funds for underprivileged children in the course of his work.
At the Festival, he employed his showmanship and interacted with children, introducing them to the culinary world by making ’bhajias’, a popular Indian savoury.
Children participated actively in cooking as ’mini rajahs’ and taste-testers, much to their delight, helping the chef through the various stages of cooking. In the course of making bhajiahs, he also managed to instill in children the necessity to maintain hygiene in the kitchen. Going by the number of children and adults who crowded around the cookery section, the show was a huge success. Twenty eight separate cookery shows conducted by eight different chefs from across the world were by the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival.
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